Review: iPhone Apps for Kids – iPhone Maths Games from Anusen

This week I have chosen to review four applications, all from the same developer because for the last three weeks my children have played these games every night. They are engaging for primary aged children. These apps make math fun. They are improving my children’s test results at school. And, the developer is not asking a ridiculous price for them. They are between $1.19 and $2.49, and based on that I’m pleased to share them with GeekDad readers.

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Four iPhone Maths Games from AnusenAnusen.comFour value for money maths games that will improve your children’s math skills and speed.4 – 10 years$1.20 – $2.50 per app

I highly recommend this suite of mathematical apps that are so understated in their branding there is not even a web address or developer’s name anywhere on the apps themselves. This lack of branding and focus on usability for primary aged children across different numeracy levels make it another excellent application to support the development of children’s maths skills and knowledge.

The four games that my children and I have been testing out are Count Magic, Math Series, Math Magic and Think Big – read over the fold for the review.

Count Magic
– a catch and count game where children are required to catch the number of falling objects in a basket. Best for pre-school children developing a grasp of numbers. Maximum age probably six years.

Math Series
– a number line game (my 5 year-olds favorite) that has options for levels of complexity for children aged 5 to 8 years. Number lines can be ascending or descending and have gaps of between 1-20 and between
1-20 through to 1-100.

Math Magic –
the best straight up math sums app I’ve come across. It offers four options for the answer, covers addition, subtraction, multiplication or division from most basic to very complex using a simple interface which rewards correct answers, and notes incorrect answers, but without much fuss.

Think Big
– An engaging game that requires the player to find the biggest (or smallest) number out of a series on the screen. As with other games the options allow you to vary the difficulty for the age of the child. This was a nice challenging one for the kids.

The Benefits

Essentially, these games are just new takes on old-style math sheets that children have been doing in class for eons. The real benefit is that the interface, the ability to capture positive reinforcement in a visual and audible way really seems to have a great impact. This is more than "you got 7 out of 10 right," each correct answer is rewarded, and multiple correct answers gain the players rewards like stickers or cupcakes. This also appears to drive the children on, just as solitaire or Tetris or any other repetitive type computer game does for the player. Except, this game is teaching our children the fundamentals of maths.

The Math Magic game is perfect for students who might be struggling with their times tables and multiplication.

Apps like this are simple, and there should be a greater urgency to get these onto iTouch machines and into the classroom.

The Value of options
The options across the four apps mentioned here are extensive. Numbers can range from the most simple to complexities reaching a forth or fifth grade level. This gives the apps a life span and an age range that many others don’t offer.

What the kids enjoyed
My five and seven year-olds favorite functions of the games were those that charted their success and rewarded them "stickers," "cupcakes" and various rewards for achieving a number of correct results. The other function they used a lot, and were frustrated when it wasn’t available for m ore difficult areas (i.e. multiplication and division) was "the magic wand." The wand is a button alongside a given sum that opens up a visual representation of the number underneath the sum. So, if the sum is 6 minus 4, then six apples and four apples respectively will appear under each number if the wand is tapped, giving the user a cue to count the answer out. A method used in many maths books for children.

For the record, my 5 year-olds favorite was Math Series – the line number game. My 7 year-old was right into "Math Magic" which mirrored his experience of maths sheets at school, but which he said was "way much more fun, Dad."

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